Ken Adelman Doesn't Speak for GOP Base

Folks are making a big to-do out of Kenneth Adelman's endorsement of Barack Obama.

If there was ever a lukewarm endorsement, this one's it.

But besides that, the endorsement's ringing in what it's telling us about the schisms in the GOP. The Booman Tribune points the way:

It's somewhat unsettling to see swine like Ken Adelman endorsing Barack Obama, but it's telling. Yes, a lot of people are beginning to see what side of the bread the butter is spread on. But there's more to it than that. Adelman didn't express any disappointment with McCain's tactics. His big concerns were with Palin and with McCain's erratic performance during the economic meltdown. But the elites within the Republican Party are definitely seeing the race-hatred that McCain and Palin are stirring up. And they don't want to be associated with it. They've tolerated the whole anti-abortion, war on Christmas, anti-science-gibberish trend of modern Republicanism because indulging those people gave them the votes they needed for lower taxes, less regulation, and bigger defense budgets. But outright calling your opponent an anti-Ameican, socialist, terrorist-coddling, welfare-king? That's too over the top for the likes of Ken Adelman or Colin Powell or Peggy Noonan or Lincoln Chafee, or Chuck Hagel, or Dick Lugar, or the editorial boards of countless right-leaning newspapers, or George Will, or David Brooks, or pretty much anyone with an ounce of self-respect and respect for others.

It's an excellent sign for Obama's presidency that he has such a broad range of elite support. He will have a nice honeymoon. But, what about the rancid, snarling, remnant of the modern conservative movement? Is this it? Railing against imaginary socialism? How long will it take for the GOP to regroup and retool enough that they can begin to attract back the Adelmans and Powells and Brooks and Wills and Chafees and Lugars and Hagels?

Once you get past Booman's teeth-grinding commentary, we can see what's really going on: Leftists like this think the new Republican Party, starting with Newt Gingrich in the 1990s, but likely to be carried forward in the years ahead by the likes of Sarah Palin, is some demonic pseudo-fascist aberration - a subterreanean trend of ideological extremism that will fade away after a term or two of Democratic Party rule.

First, I think Booman's getting ahead of himself. It's not good form to talk of an Obama presidency, essentially, in the present tense. We have two more weeks to go, and Adelman's endorsement is hardly a game-changing October surprise.

More fundamentally, though, is this notion that people like Colin Power, Kenneth Adelman, and Chuck Hagel, etc., speak for the contemporary conservative base of the Republican Party. If these folks are a kind of proxy for the Rockefeller Republicans of days gone past, and this is the true legitimate backbone of the party, then Booman needs to wake up.

Powell's an elder statesman, and he's looking for a few more golden years in Washington after turning-in a troubled tenure at State. Adelman's a largely-forgotten arms control expert whose greatest moments came during the Reagan administration in the 1980s. Throw-weights and MIRVs aren't on the tips of the tongue for most policy wonks nowadays, although maybe Adelman might be of use to Obama in the event of Tehran's acquisition of intermediate range ballistic missiles. And Hagel's RINO, to put it simply. His criticisms of the Bush administration and the Iraq war might as well been published at Daily Kos or the Huffington Post.

Pundits now are talking about people like Gingrich and Palin leading the GOP field for the presidential nomination in 2012. Beyond that, we might see folks like Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Tim Pawlenty as the top GOP leaders in the next couple of election cycles.

Among journalists, Robert Kagan and William Kristol are likely to have more influence than David Brooks or Peggy Noonan. It's fun to buck the tide with some iconoclastic commentary, but when push comes to shove, those pumping up the party line will have the inside track on the presidential beat of power during the next Republican era.

And keep in mind, I'm not throwing my hands up on McCain/Palin right now. This race is going down to the wire, no matter what the overconfident netroots hacks have to say about it.

Bush Will Keep Guantánamo Open

Via Memeorandum and New York Times:

Despite his stated desire to close the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, President Bush has decided not to do so, and never considered proposals drafted in the State Department and the Pentagon that outlined options for transferring the detainees elsewhere, according to senior administration officials.

Mr. Bush’s top advisers held a series of meetings at the White House this summer after a Supreme Court ruling in June cast doubt on the future of the American detention center. But Mr. Bush adopted the view of his most hawkish advisers that closing Guantánamo would involve too many legal and political risks to be acceptable, now or any time soon, the officials said.

The administration is proceeding on the assumption that Guantánamo will remain open not only for the rest of Mr. Bush’s presidency but also well beyond, the officials said, as the site for military tribunals of those facing terrorism-related charges and for the long prison sentences that could follow convictions.

The effect of Mr. Bush’s stance is to leave in place a prison that has become a reviled symbol of the administration’s fight against terrorism, and to leave another contentious foreign policy decision for the next president.

This story may well be the top controversy covered today by the netroots left - ahhh!! ... the evil Bush/Cheny cabal!!

Meanwhile, the administration's decision means that terrorist detainees will not be returning to the battlefield anytime soon.

Thank you President Bush.

Night of the Living Democrats

Via Dr. Sanity:

Bill Clinton and Al Gore clearly weren't bulls**ting us when they urged Democrats to build "a bridge to the 21st century". But they forgot that a bridge is something that goes both ways; and it can be used to escape back in the opposite direction from forward; and that's the direction today's living Dems are stampeding - all the way back to the golden age of '60s radicalism and violence.

And you don't have to be a Weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.

You can say that again: "We Didn't Do Enough? The Ayers-Weatherman Terrorist Attack."

Rationalizing Obama: "This Country Was Founded by Terrorists"

Fox News is on the story of Barack Obama's book review of William Ayers', A Kind and Just Parent: Children of the Juvenile Court.

It turns out Ayers mentions Obama in the book:

The book, which details life at the Chicago Juvenile Court prison school, mentions Obama by name on page 82 when it describes Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood:

"Our neighbors include Muhammad Ali, former mayor Eugene Sawyer, poets Gwendolyn Brooks and Elizabeth Alexander, and writer Barack Obama. Minister Louis Farrakhan lives a block from our home and adds, we think, a unique dimension to the idea of 'safe neighborhood watch': the Fruit of Islam, his security force, has an eye on things twenty-four-hours a day."

Meanwhile, Patterico notes this comment during " an actual conversation with an unidentified Obama supporter":

This country was founded by terrorists.

It takes a lot of rationalization to dismiss Obama's radical associations.

Meanwhile, "progressives" are starting their victory dance.

God help this country on January 20th if these folks come to power.

See also, "We Didn't Do Enough? The Ayers-Weatherman Terrorist Attack."

We Didn't Do Enough? The Ayers-Weatherman Terrorist Attack

The Weathermen were a Marxist-Leninist militant organization that declared war on the United States in 1969. Check this video for some background on the group's terrorist activities:

Here's this, from Wikipedia:

On March 6, 1970, during preparations for the bombing of an officers' dance at the Fort Dix U.S. Army base and for Butler Library at Columbia University, there was an explosion in a Greenwich Village safe house when the nail bomb being constructed prematurely detonated for unknown reasons. WUO members Diana Oughton, Ted Gold, and Terry Robbins died in the explosion. Cathy Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin escaped unharmed ... The bomb preparations have been pointed out by critics of the claim that the Weatherman group did not try to take lives with its bombings. Harvey Klehr, the Andrew W. Mellon professor of politics and history at Emory University in Atlanta, said in 2003, "The only reason they were not guilty of mass murder is mere incompetence. I don't know what sort of defense that is."

Barack Obama appeared with Ayers on a panel on juvenile justice organized by Michelle Obama on November 20, 1997.

Obama now claims Ayers has been rehabilitated and he denies writing book reviews favoring Ayers' theories of criminal justice.

If the Democratic nominee's relationship to Ayers - who wished he could have done more to destroy the U.S. - doesn't make your skin crawl, I doubt anything would.

Obama Denies Reviewing Ayers Book on Juvenile Justice

This is almost unbelievable.

The Barack Obama campaign is denying Senator Obama wrote a book review, dated December 21, 1997, of William Ayers', "A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court."

As Zombietime has shown, the facts on record are completely irrefutable, unless there's more than one Barack Obama who appeared on a panel with William Ayers in November 1997 to discuss the book (a panel organized by none other than Michelle Obama).

Here's Zombietime:

The following images are pretty much unnecessary; yet because of the intense nature of this campaign, and because every single tidbit of news is dissected, analyzed, doubted and challenged, I am posting these pictures to prove beyond any doubt that the photo of the Obama-Ayers review shown above is authentic, and not some Photoshop hoax, as I’m quite sure Obama’s defenders would claim if I didn’t pre-emptively debunk their accusations.

Barack Obama told George Stephanopoulos in April that William Ayers was just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood."

Now his campaign's denying he reviewed Ayers' juvenile justice book.

Add to this all of the other untruths making the shady Illinois Democrat a systematic - if not pathological - liar, and you can see why I said "this is almost unbelievable."

Damn, That Liberal Press!

Mike's America assured me some time back that relentless attacks on my blog by the nihilist leftosphere were a "badge of honor."

It seems I must have really earned that "badge" this past couple of days, as I'm a target of two - back-to-back! - posts at LGM (here and here), as well as another I just found from the lower 9th-tier blog, The Poorman.

The best one, of course, is the photoshop of me as a masterbating "clown" blogger, posted in response to my essay on Proposition 8 and this photo of two lesbians kissing, which I found at the "choice cunts!" nightlife page of New York's libertine Village Voice.

Of course, the LGM crowd thought I had a porno collection on my pc, so when regular LGM reader, Fauxmaxbaer, remarked here in the comments, "Teh hot!," I thought that pretty much summed up Dave Noon's perverted readership:

Looks like Fauxmaxbaer, one of your regular readers, is doing some one-handed blog surfing:

http://americanpowerblog.blogspo...ols.html#166553

I'm sure all of your LGM readers - Lesbians, Gays, and Marriage? - will be right at home.

A direct hit, no doubt, which triggered LGM's desperate comeback today, hoping to land a knockout against my Michelle Obama "lobster snack" post.

Well, the fun thing about blogging is that sometimes the best smears, even when short of facts, hit close to home neverthless. And that's why I began my post noting:

Michelle Obama is said to have ordered lobster appetizers, two whole steamed lobsters, Iranian caviar, and French champagne while hanging out at the Waldorf-Astoria during a trip to New York with her husband, Barack, aka "The One."

Notice the "is said" verb qualifier, which reflects the eyebrow-raising nature of the source, New York Magazine, which noted this:

Michelle Obama ordered lobster apps, two whole steamed lobsters, Iranian caviar, and Champagne at the Waldorf Wednesday afternoon when she was there with O for a meeting.

Now, while perhaps you can't trust the gossip blogs at liberal New York magazines, no doubt David Noon and his followers will be checking the Village Voice "choice cunts!" page next time they're in the city!

Hey, all in a day's work, and I'm glad I could be of help.

Obama Lowers Expectations

Howard Kurtz argues that the "poll-driven press" has gone out on a limb in predicting an Obama lanslide, yet "polls change, as many journalists were reminded when they wrongly predicted that Obama would beat Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary."

Perhaps Obama's being careful about not getting caught up on the landslide euphoria, as this piece from The Hill indicates:

Barack Obama, coming off a weekend where he shattered the single month fundraising record and received the endorsement of retired Gen. Colin Powell, said Monday he expects the race for the White House to tighten.

The Democratic presidential nominee said on NBC’s “Today Show” that there is “no doubt” that Republican rival Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) has a path to victory, despite the Illinois senator's leads in many battleground states and in national polls.

“We think that the race will tighten, just because that’s what happens at the end of campaigns. They always have,” Obama said, adding, “And in each of these battleground states, you’ve got a lot of close races. One of the messages that I’ve had to my team is that we don’t let up. We do not let up.”

Obama noted that “every time we’ve gotten in trouble in this campaign, it’s because we started trying to play ball-control offense.”

Obama's lowering expectations a bit (after Democratic insiders predicted an Obama landslide last week).

It's a good thing, too, as a number of media outlets have noted that the race is tightening and McCain's closing the gap in some polls.

Obama Supporters Absolve Powell for Promoting Bush "Lies"

It's a no-brainer to figure out that Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama is the ultimate political mainstreaming device for the shady Illinois Democrat, who for many voters is an ideological radical and oppositional "other."

What's particularly interesting is the hypocrisy on the left over the endorsement, as noted in the comments to a Mark Steyn post yesterday:

How come when Colin Powell promoted Bush's "lies," he was not someone to be believed or trusted, but now that he's endorsed Obama, he is someone to be . . . believed and trusted?

Here's Mother Jones on Powell, from an essay attacking him earlier this year:

Powell's loyalty to George Bush appears to have extended to a willingness to deceive the United Nations, Americans, and the coalition troops about to be sent to kill and die in Iraq. He has never been held accountable for his actions, and it's extremely unlikely he ever will be.

There's no mention of all of this by lefty bloggers this morning, for example, Shaun Mullen, who screams:

The racist and xenophobic bile that has flowed from the right-wing Republican base and spokesmouths like Rush Limbaugh has been unprecedented in this campaign season, and it was easy to predict that the moment Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama that he was no longer a war hero and brilliant diplomat but just another uppity Negro.

There's more of the faux outrage here and here (via Memeorandum).

Even leftists who argue Powell was a sole voice of caution during the run-up to the war in 2003 are in a bind now.

Powell made the sale at the U.N. He did not resign his post in protest. If Bush "lied," so did the secretary of state.

Can it really be possible that one of the greatest "BushCo fascists" is set to join a Barack Obama administration as an advisor?

You can't make this stuff up!

It's all about power, not principle, for the nihilist left of the political spectrum.

Conservatives in Crisis

John Heilemann has a nice overview of the conservative crisis that's taken over the Republican Party. It's all good, but this passage provides a nice summary:

With the prospect of defeat for John McCain growing more likely every day, the GOP destined to see its numbers reduced in both the House and Senate, and the Republican brand debased to the point of bankruptcy, the conservative intelligentsia is factionalized and feuding, criminating and recriminating, in a way that few of its members can recall in their political lifetimes. Populists attack Establishmentarians. Neocons assail theocons. And virtually everyone has something harsh to say about the party’s standard-bearer. Election Day may still be two weeks away, but already the idea-merchants of the right have formed a circular firing squad.

When the weapons of choice shift from pistols to Uzis after November 4, the ensuing massacre will be for Democrats a source of political opportunity, not to mention endless entertainment. But for Republicans it will be a necessary passage toward either the revival or reinvention of conservatism. Nobody serious on the right doubts that the overhaul is at once required and bound to be arduous—but it may take longer and prove even bloodier than anyone now imagines.

This is a debate among pundits, for the most part. We'll see more commentary and analysis on the conservative way forward in the weeks ahead, and of course post-mortems from all sides in the case of an Obama victory.

Meanwhile, Ross Douthat's had an exchange with Mark Steyn over the idea of a conservative "cocoon" (the walling-off of various ideological factions within the GOP).

Go back to Heilemann's piece for more background, for example, on the party's split over Sarah Palin's pick as GOP running mate. But here's Douthat, in any case, on how Palin's appeal to base conservative illustrates this notion of tribal cocoons:

Sarah Palin's Alaska is not the conservative cocoon. Neither is Tim Pawlenty's Minnesota, or Mike Huckabee's Arkansas, or any other place out in flyover country where a populist conservative became a popular and successful governor. The cocoon is the constellation of mutually-reinforcing conservative institutions - think tanks and advocacy groups, talk-radio shows and websites - that can create the same echo-chamber effect that the liberal media has long produced, and that at times makes it difficult for the Right to grapple with reality. The cocoon is the place where it took an awfully, awfully long time for conservatives to admit that the post-2004 crisis in Iraq wasn't just a matter of an MSM that wouldn't report the good news. The cocoon is the place where conservatives persuaded themselves, in defiance of most of the evidence, that the reason the GOP lost Congress in 2006 was excessive spending, and especially excessive pork. And today, the cocoon is the place where conservatives are busy convincing themselves that Sarah Palin's difficulties handling high-profile media appearances aren't terribly important, that her instincts are more important than her grasp of national policy, and that the best way to defeat Barack Obama is to start with the lines that Palin has used on the stump - Ayers, anti-Americanism and ACORN - and take them to eleven.

Read the rest of it to get the entire flow of argument.

I like Douthat's writing, although I think folks are hashing things out more than is necessary. Had the Wall Street crash come after the election, it's quite likely that Demcratic-leftists would be the ones debating partisan "cocoons."

As I noted previously, this year's contest is shaping up to be an electoral earthquake. The economic crisis, and historic lows in "on the right track" polling data, have created the perfect environment for the party out of power. Indeed, it's counterintuitive that John McCain and the Republicans are doing as well as they are. As I argued, a large pick-up for the Democrats in the Congress - especially a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate - combined with a Barack Obama victory, could signal the kind of electoral change the country experienced in 1860 or 1932.

Even in the absence of a partisan realigment (which would be seen in a succession of Democratic victories over the next few presidential elections), there's certain to be a substantial change in the public philosphy.

I recall, back in the 1980s, reading Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s, The Cycles of American History.

Schlesinger offers a theory of political change that's less about partisan realignment than about transformations in national visions. Apparently, history moves through generations of private interest versus public purpose, between capitalistic indulgence and democratic involvement. The classic periods of private pursuit were the 1890s and 1920s, which were followed by periods of public purpose in the 1930s, 1950s, and 1960s.

Currently, in many respects we're still in the long period of private interest that came to fruition during President Reagan's administration, and hasn't been shaken loose since. The ideological underpinnings of the Reagan Revolution - limited government domestically, and robust internationalism in foreign policy, with a growing cultural conservative base - are now stretched to the breaking point after two terms of GOP rule, during which George W. Bush discarded any sense of commitment to the small-g conservatism that's driven much of the activist base of the Republican Party since Barry Goldwater's campaign in 1964.

In this respect, Barack Obama's rise to national prominence can be situated in a near-perfect storm of economic dislocations and decreasing public investment in people and infrastructure. The United States remains a center-right nation, but Americans are also pragmatic when dramatic challenges pose dilemmas for the prevailing public ethos.

In that sense, it's probably less John McCain's judgment or Sarah Palin's inexperience, than the overall crisis of conservative ideas and Republican governance, along with the failure to nurture a new conservative philosophy to lift up and revitalize the old.

All this being said, I'm not throwing my hands up at GOP prospects on November 4th. As noted, McCain's doing better than can be expected, and this year's got more electoral uncertainties than is usual.

Powell Endorsement Mainstreams Obama

Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama for the presidency (see Hot Air):

There's tremendous importance to Powell's move, and folks can sort though the former secretary of state's possible motivations. The main political implication is to give Obama considerable legitimacy where he needs it most: in foreign affairs. As Chris Cillizza notes:

Powell’s endorsement complicates any attempt by John McCain and others within the Republican Party to cast Obama as naive on world affairs and unready to lead in a dangerous time. Obama now has a ready retort: “Well, Colin Powell seems to trust my judgment; that’s why he endorsed me.”

Mark Halperin adds this:

Powell is a brand unto himself in American politics, and clearly transcends the media's tendency to hype endorsements more than their actual importance to voters....

He is so trusted for his judgment on national security (even in the wake of his role in the current Iraq War) that his confidence in Obama to become commander-in-chief will resonate with many elites and voters. The Democrats' ability to play the Powell card for the next two weeks makes it much harder, even if there is an unexpected international crisis, for Republicans to suggest Obama simply isn't qualified to protect the country.

Even deeper than this is the question of race and culture: Colin Powell was a favorite for the GOP nomination in 1996, and during the first Bush administration he was more popular than any other figure at the White House.

If there's someone who personifies mainstream values, it's Colin Powell. He's the non-threatening black that Americans long for. It's not unlikely that we would have had similar race-baiting smear campaigns in the event of a Powell presidential run, but the former secretary of state's history as a soldier and public servant in previous presidential administrations would have made any attempt to "otherize" him positively ludicrous.

That's not the case with Barack Obama. At this point in the campaign, the opportunity for the Illinois Senator to roll the Powell endorsement off his lips is the most important mainstreaming push he could possibly have gotten. With the huge round of newspaper endorsements now lining up behind the Democratic nominee, it's going to be very difficult for John McCain to consolidate his recent improvements in the polls over the next few days.

Other than this, only time will tell how this election will end up. We have less than three weeks to go, and it's going to be close. The Powell endorsement is the kind of late variable that could make a difference.

Will Gay Marriage Be Taught in Schools?

A no vote on California's Proposition 8 could mean that kids in the state's classrooms may receive instruction on gay marriage. The Los Angeles Times reports:

It was supposed to be a 90-minute excursion, a noontime field trip for a group of San Francisco charter school students and their parents to see the kids' lesbian teacher marry her partner in a wedding performed by Mayor Gavin Newsom.

But after the event was reported in the San Francisco Chronicle and picked up by cable television and the Internet, the first-graders at Creative Arts Charter School found themselves at the center of the hottest battle in the campaign over gay marriage: the question of whether failure to pass Proposition 8 would result in widespread classroom discussions of same-sex unions.

Supporters of the constitutional amendment, under which marriage would be defined as only between a man and a woman, contend that if Proposition 8 does not pass, gay marriage will be taught in public schools. "We are already seeing that happen," said Frank Schubert, campaign manager for Yes on 8.

The opposing side insists that this is fear-mongering and notes that there is no mention of schools or curriculum in the language of the proposition.

Read the whole thing, here.

I don't think it's fear-mongering. I don't want my own public-school children receiving instruction on gay marriage, especially my youngest son, who's in 1st grade.

Race Card May Help Obama to the White House

Marc Sheppard argues that Barack Obama's presidential bid may benefit from his racial background:

Back in September, a quite topical McCain Ad [video] questioned Obama's economic experience and attacked his advisor "on mortgage and housing policy," former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines:

"Under Raines, Fannie Mae committed ‘extensive financial fraud.' Raines made millions. Fannie Mae collapsed. Taxpayers? Stuck with the bill. Barack Obama. Bad advice. Bad instincts. Not ready to lead."

Great Ad - and right on target. But amazingly, many in the media, including Time's Karen Tumulty, cried foul. Why? Because the video contained "sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman." The calculus: One black Obama plus one black Raines plus one white "stuck with the bill" taxpayer equals one subliminal interracial mugging.

Ridiculous? Try this one - the following month, when Sarah Palin mentioned at a California rally that Obama was "palling around with terrorists," the AP branded the comment as carrying "a racially tinged subtext." Hmmm. The Alaskan governor was referring to Obama's still inadequately explained close relationship with unrepentant home-grown terrorist William Ayers - who just happens to be white. Yet the preposterously twisted charge continues its regurgitation on cable news channels ad nauseam.

Such discussion-avoiding dishonesty would seem better suited to racial ambulance-chasers of the Jackson/Sharpton school than to the post-racial savior of man.

But somehow, the Senator has learned to adapt.

He's learned to adapt, alright. As Charles Krauthammer noted earlier:

What makes this all the more dismaying is that it comes from Barack Obama, who has consistently presented himself as a healer, a man of a new generation above and beyond race, the man who would turn the page on the guilt-tripping grievance politics of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Meanwhile, once again we're hearing that if Obama doesn't win the election there'll be race riots in the streets.

To that, RWP suggests, "that’s why God gave the police AR-15s."

Arab World Campaign Money Could Help Obama

Via Philippe Ohlund:

Sen. Barack is Obama a Muslim of Kenyan origins who studied in Islamic schools and whose campaign may have been financed by people in the Islamic and African worlds, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi said during a recent televised national rally.

"There are elections in America now. Along came a black citizen of Kenyan African origins, a Muslim, who had studied in an Islamic school in Indonesia. His name is Obama," said Gadhafi in little-noticed remarks he made at a rally marking the anniversary of the 1986 U.S. air raid on his country.

The remarks, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, MEMRI, were aired on Al Jazeera in June.

"All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man," continued Gadhafi. "They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency.

"We are hoping that this black man will take pride in his African and Islamic identity, and in his faith, and that [he will know] that he has rights in America, and that he will change America from evil to good, and that America will establish relations that will serve it well with other peoples, especially the Arabs," Gadhafi said.

Source: World Net Daily.

See MEMRI's page here.

Folks can question the legitimacy of this information, and World Net Daily doesn't add anything new to the initial MEMRI translation from June.

However, as Jennifer Rubin reported in September, Barack Obama, as a board member of the Woods Fund, received substantial support from the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), a non-profit group "supposedly dedicated to improving the conditions of Arab immigrants in the Chicago area."

One Woods board member was Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi, who helped organize Arab political donations to Barack Obama's election campaigns:

Khalidi, a former spokesman for Yasser Arafat, held a fundraiser for Obama in 2000 during his unsuccessful bid for Congress....

The pattern of funneling money to political allies and their allies is evident throughout Obama’s tenure at the Woods Fund. Tens and tens of thousands of dollars were granted to organizations including the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPPPI), the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Centers for New Horizons, the Chicago Jobs Council, the Chicago Education Fund, the Chicago Institute on Urban Poverty, the Chicago Urban League, The Gamaliel Foundation. Dozens of the board members and officials from these organizations in turn would donate money, in many instances up to the legal limit, for Obama’s Senate and Presidential races between 2004 and 2008.

For example the Woods Fund between 1999 and 2002 granted $60,000 to BPPPI. Board member and executives donated at least $16,950 to Obama’s political campaigns. The Woods Fund granted the Center of Neighborhood Technology $150,000 between 1999 and 2002. Obama received over $24,000 in campaign donations from its officials. And in turn Obama made sure to seek earmarks on their behalf once he reached the U.S. Senate.

A similar pattern of mutual financial help existed with regard to many of these organizations. While there is no evidence of an explicit quid pro quo, what is apparent is that the seeds of long term relationships and a network of financial support were sewn while Obama was a Woods board member.

While Obama's Arab/Palestian connections appear murky, the mainstream press reported on these relationships during the primaries, for example, in the Los Angeles Times' expose, "Allies of Palestinians See a Friend in Barack Obama."

Folks can question the significance and veracity of all of this, but as one more stream of Barack Obama's radical associations, I think the American people have a major interest in evaluating these facts for themselves.

"Way Hotter in Person": Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live

Sarah Palin did Saturday Night Live:

I normally put aside partisanship for Saturday Night, but considering we have less than three weeks before the election, John Hinderaker makes a good point:

It's a mistake, I'm afraid. It's not that I lack confidence in Governor Palin; I don't. But I think it's almost always a mistake to visit an enemy's home turf without a clear understanding that you are among enemies.

The Saturday Night Live people are Democrats. That's all there is to it, and they will never give Sarah Palin, or any other Republican, a fair shake. Palin is, of course, more than a match for them in a fair fight. But for a fight to be fair, it must first be acknowledged that it's a fight. That won't happen tonight, and it will be almost a miracle if Palin gains from the exposure.

And don't miss Hindrocket's discussion of President Gerald Ford's experience as a guest on SNL.

Ben Smith adds this:

A reader notes the most striking feature [of the broadcast]: The Obama ads in the breaks pounding McCain. One is a new one focused on women's issues. The other nicely dovetails with Tina Fey's riff on angry McCain.

I'm going go easy here and suggest that perhaps Palin might have made some inroads with young independent viewers.

That said, it's good comedy, and I'll bet she really is hotter in person!

Barack Obama Book Review on William Ayers, 1997

Zombietime's got some interesting information on Barack Obama's association with William Ayers.

As you can see from the Chicago Tribune photo above, Obama noted that Ayers' book was, "A searing and timely account of the juvenile court system, and the courageous individuals who rescue hope from despair."

Interestingly, Obama and Ayers appeared together on a "juvenile justice" panel in 1997:

Just a few weeks before this review was published in the Chicago Tribune, Obama and Ayers appeared together on a panel about juvenile justice organized by Michelle Obama on November 20, 1997:

Children who kill are called “super predators,” “people with no conscience,” “feral pre-social beings” — and “adults.”

William Ayers, author of A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court (Beacon Press, 1997), says “We should call a child a child. A 13-year-old who picks up a gun isn’t suddenly an adult. We have to ask other questions: How did he get the gun? Where did it come from?”

Ayers, who spent a year observing the Cook County Temporary Juvenile Detention Center in Chicago, is one of four panelists who will speak on juvenile justice at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, in the C-Shop. The panel, which marks the 100th anniversary of the juvenile justice system in the United States, is part of the Community Service Center’s monthly discussion series on issues affecting the city of Chicago. The event is free and open to the public.

Ayers will be joined by Sen. Barack Obama, Senior Lecturer in the Law School, who is working to combat legislation that would put more juvenile offenders into the adult system; Randolph Stone, Director of the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic; Alex Correa, a reformed juvenile offender who spent seven years in Cook County Temporary Detention Center; Frank Tobin, a former priest and teacher at the Detention Center who helped Correa; and Willy Baldwin, who grew up in public housing and is currently a teacher at the Detention Center.

I find it very hard — no, make that impossible — to believe that Barack Obama had “no idea” who William Ayers really was, or that he had a past as a notorious domestic terrorist (as Obama’s campaign has claimed) while serving on panels with Ayers and simultaneously praising Ayers’ book in a major newspaper.

This story is likely to continue growing, and I thought that the image above would provide a good “visual” for the Obama-Ayers connection.

Actually, the campaign's getting late, and I'm not convinced that this story will "continue growing."

However, this information is extremely useful in documenting the depths of Barack Obama's deceit and evasion, and that's something that may work in turning back the tide a little in this last two weeks of campaigning.

Note: Obama's review of Ayers' book is digitally archived in Lexis-Nexus data files. Zombietime includes images of that proof as well, to satisy conspiracists arguing "hoax."

Michelle "Let Them Eat Cake" Obama

UPDATE: Don't miss the sequel to this post, Damn, That Liberal Press!

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Michelle Obama is said to have ordered lobster appetizers, two whole steamed lobsters, Iranian caviar, and French champagne while hanging out at the Waldorf-Astoria during a trip to New York with her husband, Barack, aka "The One."

While the "let them eat cake" quotation has been misattributed to Marie Antoinette, the phrase nevertheless remains perfectly descriptive of Michelle Obama's decadence, and the hypocrisy of her husband.

As Sweetness and Light indicates, Barack Obama's life and pursuit of the presidency has been about sacrifice and service:

Indeed, in his first autobiography, Dreams From My Father, page 293, Mr. Obama specifically cites a passage from Wright’s sermon “The Audacity To Hope” that helped inspire him to a life of public service and sacrifice:

It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere... That’s the world! On which hope sits!

Well, perhaps Obama's "spread the wealth" philosophy includes sending to each according to their need a nice allowance of Bollinger champagne and Iranian Osetra caviar. Got to keep the proles in line...

We All Love This Country?

Yesterday in Mesilla, New Mexico, Democratic running mate Joseph Biden attacked Sarah Palin's recent "pro-American" campaign rallies:

We are one nation, under God, indivisible. We are all patriotic. We all love our country in every part of this nation!

Well, maybe not everyone:

Concept: Michelle Malkin

Ugly Overconfidence in Prospects of Obama Landslide

Content Warning: If you're morally opposed to boxing don't watch the video below. My dad was a huge boxing fan (we watched many a fight together), and from a sports perspective Allen Green's 18-second knock-out of Jaidon Codrington is pure entertainment.

The video's from an Obama landslide post at the Demonic Conservative Ridicule Machine, where a reader took issue with both the entry's imagery and the despicable satire:

For perhaps the first time, I have to take strong exception to a TBogg post.

First, I find the boxing clip in really poor taste.

And, what is more important, I find overconfidence to be both uncalled for and genuinely misplaced. The polls are far too inconsistent and unreliable to justify any measure of overconfidence, which even in the best of circumstances is never an attractive trait.

I couldn't have said it better myself, except to add that DCRM's racist undertones add a particularly reprehensible tinge to the post.

Nothing new, of course.

Racists for Barack Obama?

Ben Smith's got a provocative piece up today at the Politico, "Racists for Obama?"

Anecdotes from across the battlegrounds suggest that there’s a significant minority of prejudiced white voters who will swallow hard and vote for the black man.

“I wouldn’t want a mixed marriage for my daughter, but I’m voting for Obama,” the wife of a retired Virginia coal miner, Sharon Fleming, told the Los Angeles Times recently.

You've got to love it!

All year I've been saying the genuine racism we've seen in campaign '08 has been on the Democratic side, and now the party's voters are just coming right out to confirm it!

As Jammie Wearing Fool notes, "So refreshing to see the Democrats openly admit they're racist scumbags..."

But read the whole essay at the Politico. I especially liked this part, about Obama's appeal in Michigan:

Until this fall, both campaigns viewed Michigan — a heavily Democratic state, but one with a history of tension between Detroit and its white suburbs — as Obama’s Achilles’ heel ....

But earlier this month, McCain gave up the state for lost as economic concerns appear to have trumped racial ones. “Obama’s personality — his speech, his look — he provides [white voters] with a non-threatening way to move forward on this issue, and that’s a very positive development,” said David Waymire, who led the unsuccessful opposition to the anti-affirmative action initiative. “He is not Kwame Kilpatrick,” he said, referring to the Detroit mayor who resigned last month after pleading guilty in a sex and misconduct scandal.

Just contemplate the loaded racism in that passage: Essentially, folks see Kwame Kilpatrick as a big, black threatening "nigga" (used here non-pejoratively, in the hip-hop sense, but perhaps differently by the working-class whites identified in the Politico).

I swear, one has to be a contortionist to make sense of Democratic Party racial politics.

I mean, think about it: What's the difference between Kwame Kilpatrick and Barack Obama?

Kilpatrick's headed for jail, sure, but besides Obama's interracial background, they're both dishonest big-city Democratic Party politicians who took advantage of insider connections and hardball mob-methods to climb the rungs of power. Of course, Obama's smarter, more attractive, and he's hasn't been caught in flagrant extramarital affairs (or drug-induced homesexual romps with two-bit political groupies). Other than that, Antoin Rezko, Bill Ayers and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and the spiritural guidance of Reverend "God Damn America" Jeremiah Wright ought to rate up there - at least in surreptitious subterranean sleaze - with Kilpatrick's one-party urban Democratic machine corruption and criminal prosecution.

This is much of today's Democratic Party, not to mention the bigoted rednecks, and they're all headed to the White House upon a possible Obama win on November 4th.

Cries of Fascism: Left-Wing Hypocrites Fan Flames of Hatred

Dave Neiwert has made a career out of fanning the flames of partisan demonization. He has, for example, offered a theory of "pseudo fascism" which he uses as an all-purpose bludgeon to slander conservatives as the reincarnation of the Nazis.

While scholarship has long noted fascist tendencies in the far right-wing of American politics, the comprehensive catch-all nature of Neiwart's project makes him look like an unhinged crank.

As Classical Values once remarked, about Neiwart's "pseudo-fascist" thesis:

I think it is a heavy-handed appeal to the emotions, because for most people the word epitomizes all that is evil. Focusing on some characteristics of fascism (nationalism and one-party rule), and comparing these features to a supposedly monolithic "conservative movement" ignores such primary features as murderous suppression of all dissent and government regimentation of industry -- which American conservatives simply don't support. This trivializes genuine fascism, and further, by making all who want this country to win the war (or their party to win the election), would implicitly tar many millions of Americans with the "pseudo-fascist" smear.

Keep this in mind while watching Katrina vanden Heuvel respond to GOP Representative Michele Bachmann's attack on Barack Obama's anti-American associations:

Note the emphasis here on "struggle," which is in essence, "class struggle" in Marxist-Leninist ideololgy. Ms. Vanden Heuvel is the editor of the far-left wing journal the Nation, but she herself is the epitome of the "liberal elite" and her own personal history mocks the notion of struggle, revealing it as no more than a hypocritical "progressive" power grab.

According to her profile on Discover the Networks:

A defining moment for Katrina vanden Heuvel came in May 2002 during one of her frequent appearances on MSNBC's Hardball. After vanden Heuvel spoke about how she lived in Harlem and understood the poor, host Chris Matthews let his audience know that in fact she lived in a multimillion-dollar townhouse in a posh section of Morningside Heights.

Did you notice the pure rage in Ms. Vanden Heuvel diatribe? There's a totally unveiled hatred of conservatives in this clip - it's an unmistakable anger at anything or anyone who might dare question the truly radical associations of Barack Obama, aka "The One."

In my post last night, "Is Barack Obama Anti-American?," I noted how today's radical left indeed hates American tradition and values, and hopes to turn this country into a social democratic regime. I suggested that anti-Americans aren't necessarily bomb-throwers; they're simply leftist ideologues who want a change of regime in the U.S., to turn the American state into something more like Canada or Denmark.

When people like Michele Bachmann are able to enunciate so perfectly the nature of that anti-Americanism, and Barack Obama's complete comfort in surrounding himself in it, the left has no other alternative than to resort to unhinged cries of McCarthyism and fascism.

It's all hypocritical and inflammatory - and is a preview of things to come under a possible Democratic administration in January.

Desperate Times: Another Vicious Attack on McCain Family

With all the talk of a Democratic landslide in November (discussed here), it seems a measure of desperation on how far the left-wing media will go to smear John McCain and his family.

Exhibit A is this morning's New York Times story, "Behind McCain, Outsider in Capital Wanting Back In," which is a hit piece on Cindy McCain disguised as biographical essay.

I've just read the article, and I frankly see nothing really new and newsworthy. The Times has hammered Mrs. McCain in a number of journalistic smears throughout the year, and today's article is just piling on.

In fact, the hatchet-job agenda of the article is revealed by Jodi Kantor's reprehensible rumor-trolling at Facebook, which is explained by Michael Goldfarb:

Today the New York Times launched yet another in a series of vicious attacks on Senator John McCain, this time targeting not the candidate, but his wife Cindy. Under the guise of a 'profile' piece, the New York Times fails to cover any new ground or provide any discernible value to the reader other than to portray Mrs. McCain in the worst possible light. Though Mrs. McCain’s battle with drug addiction and even her miscarriages are again reported, the paper entirely ignores a life devoted to family and charity work in the most impoverished and violent corners of the world -- except when a detail can be quibbled with so as to imply some kind of deceit. This campaign made every effort to share personal accounts of Mrs. McCain’s good works with the paper, but apparently they were deemed unfit for publication in the New York Times. This is gutter journalism at its worst -- an unprecedented attack on a presidential candidate's spouse.

In order to assemble this barrage of petty and personal attacks, the New York Times employed tactics that are obviously unprofessional and almost certainly unethical. This campaign has obtained a copy of an email sent by New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor to a 16-year-old girl and friend of Bridget McCain, the youngest of the McCain children. Ms. Kantor sought to dupe the unsuspecting minor by soliciting ‘advice’ on how best to approach the story, as if a top-flight investigative reporter at the New York Times would need the assistance of an underage girl in writing a hit piece.

The New York Times has stooped lower than this campaign ever imagined possible in an attempt to discredit a woman whose only apparent sin is being married to the man that would oppose that paper’s preferred candidate, Barack Obama, in his quest for the Presidency. It is a black mark on the record of a paper that was once widely respected, but is now little more than a propaganda organ for the Democratic party. The New York Times has accused John McCain of running a dishonorable campaign, but today it is plain to see where the real dishonor lies.

Goldfarb's post includes the text of an e-mail to Bridget McCain’s 16-year-old classmates, as well as the text of a letter to the Times from McCain family attorney, John M. Dowd, who wrote:

These allegations and efforts to hurt Cindy have been a matter of public record for sixteen years. Cindy has been quite open and frank about her issues for all these years. Any further attempts to harass and injure her ... will be met with an appropriate response. While she may be in the public eye, she is not public property nor the property of the press to abuse and defame.

See also Captain Ed, who writes:

The New York Times long ago transformed itself into an advocacy organization for Barack Obama. Trolling for dirt on Facebook among teenagers for hit pieces on a candidate’s spouse hits a new low. Does the National Enquirer even do that?

See also, Memeorandum.

Is Barack Obama Anti-American?

Is Barack Obama anti-American? Are Democrats? Are liberals?

These are some of the questions floating around tonight in light of GOP Representive Michele Bachman's appearance on Hardball:

It's best to watch the whole interview to see Chris Matthews trying to pin down Bachmann to name names of anti-American legislators in Congress (and there's certainly a few).

But I'll say right now, though, frankly, Bachmann nails it: She singles out Barack Obama's radical associates one by one: William Ayers, Michael Pfleger, and Jeremiah Wright and tells it like it is. These folks by word and deed can't stand America? Obama himself has gone through a life of ideological contortions and scheming political machinations to get where he is today, which is in hot water for admitting he wants to take the private property of everyday Americans and "spread the wealth."

So, what's the problem? The left goes against center-right values all the time, right?

Oh, it's polically incorrect to allege that Democrats are anti-American? That liberals are anti-American?

It all boils down to definitions and usage. Do Democrats and leftists in overwhelming numbers want to blow up the United States? Absolutely not. But one can be anti-American without wanting to commit terror and treason against U.S. institutions and American citizens.

Anti-Americanism is for all intents and purposes a core element of contemporary left-wing ideology. Leftists do not like what America IS today and what it DOES now - that is, the left hates contemporary American PRAXIS.

The left loves American IDEALS - America's PROMISE - and leftists routinely uses them to excoriate the nation's alleged history of irredeemable racist oppression and xenophobia. These are the same people who look the other way at Ayers' history of unrepentent America-bashing to claim he's rehabilitated. These are the same people who have literally pulled for an American defeat in Iraq - that'll show those damned neocons that they can't just run around the world implanting proconsuls in Third World regimes! These are the same people who want the United Nations to exert sovereign power over American affairs, to rein in American hegemony gone wild.

I checked Google to see if I could come up with any good definitions of anti-Americanism. Most of what I found applied to international opinions of the United States, but Dennis Prager did offer a pretty good first cut of leftist hatred of America today:

Why does the left hate America...?

The answer ... is that ... American success refutes the socialist ideals of the left; American use of force to vanquish evil refutes the left's pacifist tendencies; America is the last great country that believes in putting some murderers to death, something that is anathema to the left; when America is governed by conservatives, it uses the language of good and evil, language regarded by the left as "Manichean"; most Americans still believe in the Judeo-Christian value system, another target of the left because the left regards all religions as equally valid (or more to the point, equally foolish and dangerous) and regards God-based morality as the moral equivalent of alchemy.

Gerhard Baker also had a nice take on leftists and anti-Americanism in the global context:

They want to construct an international system that will for ever prevent the US from pursuing its own objectives, a system designed to dilute, counterbalance and constrain America’s ability to govern itself. They prefer a world in which American democracy is subordinated to a kind of global government, rule by a global elite, tasked to make decisions on everyone’s behalf in the name of multilateralism.

This brings us back to Barack Obama.

Folks should go back and read his Foreign Affairs essay from July/August 2007, "Renewing American Leadership," which includes this nugget:

Today, we are ... called to provide visionary leadership. This century's threats are at least as dangerous as and in some ways more complex than those we have confronted in the past....

These threats demand a new vision of leadership in the twenty-first century - a vision that draws from the past but is not bound by outdated thinking. The Bush administration responded to the unconventional attacks of 9/11 with conventional thinking of the past, largely viewing problems as state-based and principally amenable to military solutions. It was this tragically misguided view that led us into a war in Iraq that never should have been authorized and never should have been waged. In the wake of Iraq and Abu Ghraib, the world has lost trust in our purposes and our principles.

A vision of blame America first...

These lines could have been written by Daily Kos, MoveOn.org, or any of the other Bush-bashing, America-hating leftists intent to tie-down American power like Gulliver and the Lilliputians.

Michelle Bachman is being vilified now because on these issues and more, she represents all that stands in the way of leftist nihilism, totalitarian control, and the radical march to destroy American traditionalism and exceptionalism.

God bless her.